The Sleep Prescription

Aric Prather PhD argues that insomnia is usually sustained by the things people do to solve it. Going to bed earlier, lying in longer, monitoring how the night is going and trying harder to fall asleep all increase the pressure on sleep and reduce the likelihood of it arriving. The book is a short, structured sequence designed to reverse that.

It is organised as seven days, each introducing one change. The changes are the core components of cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia. Match time in bed to the sleep you are actually getting rather than extending it, which concentrates sleep and rebuilds sleep pressure. Hold a fixed wake time regardless of how the night went. Get out of bed when you are awake and frustrated, so the bed stops signalling wakefulness. Move worry to a designated daytime window instead of carrying it to bed. Manage light, caffeine and alcohol around the sleep period. And change the response to waking in the night rather than fighting it, since the reaction to being awake does more damage than the waking itself.

It suits readers who want the shortest credible route into the evidence-based method — good for mild or recent insomnia and as an introduction before committing to a full programme.

On the evidence: this is the firmest ground in this section of the library. Cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia is recommended as first-line treatment for chronic insomnia in major clinical guidelines, and its benefits tend to persist after treatment ends in a way that sleeping medication's do not. The book distils that method rather than extending past it, which is unusual and worth noting. Its limits are scope: it is a brief primer, not a delivered programme, and it does not substitute for assessment when sleep apnoea, restless legs, a circadian disorder or a mood disorder is driving the problem.